£2.00 for 330ml what the Funk!

[An Ankoù]

Not at all. I begrudge paying more for beer that when you taste it is no better than cheaper beer, that's what I begrudge. I'm quite happy if I've paid more and taste the beer and find it worth every bit of it. When we lived in Stafford for example, one of our favourite pubs was The Sun, owned by Titanic, a micro brewery, so yes it cost more per pint than your average Green King or whatever, but the beer was delicious! We'd sometimes pop in to the one owned by John Jpoule's & Sons (another micro) and enjoy a more expensive pint there... We didn't often go into spoons or the like, even though we had CAMRA vouchers. When we moved to Wolverhampton, at first we'd drink in places like The Posada (an independent) as they served guest ales from around the country (not cheap) and were one of the first in the region to sell Brewdog (before they became well known...), then we discovered The Vine Inn in Wednesfield who are owned by Black Country Ales (another micro brewery) and again serve guest ales from various micros as well as BCA ales, and The Great Western (owned by Holdens). My wife was lucky enough to also visit Hail To The Ale too, a micro pub with it's own on site micro-brewery.

No, what I object to is when I pay £4/5 for a 330mls can of beer that tastes like kit beer. lol



You're drinking Green King pish, whilst living in the home of Titanic? Are you serious or is this humour? As to loving Stoke On Trent, I was born there, and heck no... :p

Quite so. I've paid over the odds for a beer just to try it- often a Belgian and sometimes an American beer- I've tasted it, recognised that it's a beautifully brewed beer and probably worth every penny, but that I simply don't like it. Often a brown in some form and too sweet to my taste. There's a world of difference between that and a beer which focuses on market and image rather than product.

 

[simon12]

Here's a link to trade exc. VAT prices of some of the fanciest cans you can get http://lists.pigs-ears.co.uk/canLDN.html as you can see the trade price on Cloudwater's double IPA is £81+VAT for 24x440ml and theres not much on the whole list less than £2 a can once you add VAT and these are trade prices.

 

[strange-steve]

Not at all. I begrudge paying more for beer that when you taste it is no better than cheaper beer, that's what I begrudge

If that's your experience then yes, you may have a valid complaint against that specific beer. There are a couple of things that get to me in these threads though.

First, the unwarranted expansion of that to include all beers, eg. "I had this expensive beer and didn't like it, therefore all expensive beers are overpriced/rubbish". Admittedly, price and quality do not necessarily correlate but that does not mean that all expensive beers are overpriced.

Or this variation: "My homebrew is better than any commercial beer and I can make it for 50p a pint, therfore all craft beers are overpriced/rubbish". Imo this stems from an often self-imposed or willing ignorance and so not really worth arguing with (although apparently I can't help myself).

 

[Gunge]

I recognise that Clint. In my uni days I always had to be Billy Big Balls who ordered the hottest curry or used the most chillies. Now I’m a better cook I know how to get the maximum flavour experience without necessarily needing to blow people’s heads off.

Although my testicular appendages are indeed massive and bursting with testosterone, I dunno how that fact is related to volcanically hot curries.. I can't get enough of the burn. The trick is to proportionally increase the ratio of other, flavourful ingredients to match the heat. Ah, beer and 'quality'. It really doesn't matter if a beer is made by naked monks on the top of a mountain using distilled virgin piss and Galaxy hops (lol) whilst praying to the God of beer, and then only twice a year then sitting on the barrels for half a decade whilst nurturing its maturation. Or whatever. If it tastes sh!te, it's sh!te. And all the beers I've been reluctantly forced to try due to my recent homebrewing faux pas, have indeed been shocking, with one or two exceptions which were just 'alright'. Can not wait til normal service is resumed and my own stuff is flowing again. I'm looking at this time next week...

 

[Oneflewover]

... all the beers I've been reluctantly forced to try due to my recent homebrewing faux pas, have indeed been shocking, with one or two exceptions which were just 'alright'. Can not wait til normal service is resumed and my own stuff is flowing again. I'm looking at this time next week...

With all sincerity can you share how you make this nectar, because I for one would dearly love to be able to make a beer that makes commercial examples seem 'alright' at best?

 

[Sadfield]

Always amuses my how these erudite critiques often only use flavour descriptors such as *****, bilge water, cat piss. Things that no normal person has tasted. Never do any of the known off flavours such a DMS, Diacetyl, astringent, phenolic, feature.

 

[Clint]

For bilge water try Boddingtons.

 

[AdeDunn]

If that's your experience then yes, you may have a valid complaint against that specific beer. There are a couple of things that get to me in these threads though.

First, the unwarranted expansion of that to include all beers, eg. "I had this expensive beer and didn't like it, therefore all expensive beers are overpriced/rubbish". Admittedly, price and quality do not necessarily correlate but that does not mean that all expensive beers are overpriced.

Or this variation: "My homebrew is better than any commercial beer and I can make it for 50p a pint, therfore all craft beers are overpriced/rubbish". Imo this stems from an often self-imposed or willing ignorance and so not really worth arguing with (although apparently I can't help myself).

Oh I wouldn't for one moment judge all beers on the basis of a few, whether expensive or inexpensive. That's like drinking a pint of Green King IPA and announcing that all inexpensive beer is flavourless bilge, when I really rather enjoy Fuller's London Pride and ESB (neither of which are particularly expensive). I wouldn't just judge it on whether I like it personally or not either overly, more a case of if it really is poor quality. If it's a style that should be a malt flavour based one, I expect malt flavours. If it's hop driven, hop flavours, yeast driven, yeast flavours. If all I get is a flavour that is best described as, well, slightly fizzy water, then that to me is a BAD beer, whether expensive or inexpensive. If I taste what can only be described as kit twang, that's going to get judged pretty harshly too... lol

I suspect though that some people drink beer to get drunk/their buzz on as cheaply as possible, and I suspect these are the folks who are going to judge anything slightly more expensive than cheapo bargain booze as overpriced. For me, it's only overpriced if it's a) genuinely poor quality or b) identical to something I can buy for a lower price. It does get silly though when people compare beer made by very small operations that is made with high quality expensive ingredients, with huge care and craftmanship, to that mass produced by a huge brewery with zero care or craftmanship, UNLESS the small operation has made the mistake of producing something that tastes identical to the mass produced product, as why the heck would they want to do that? It'd be like Belgian monks trying to produce a beer that tasted just like Fosters, then selling it for £12 a bottle! lol To not get a genuine label of overpriced, your product needs to actually be different, and in a good way.

I think it's just very fashionable though to jump on the "craft is just a label they put on to rip us off" bandwagon, thanks in part to a few macros and not so great micros doing just that maybe?

As to saying my homebrew is better than any commercial beer, no just some of it, and then only to me as it's brewed to my own personal tastes. It's like going into a restaurant, sometimes the food isn't going to be cooked to your personal tastes and preferences, doesn't mean it's a bad restaurant, or make you a better cook than the chef, just means they're cooking the food to somebody else's tastes and preferences. Like when my dad started having a go at the waitress in our local, complaining that the veg was under cooked. It wasn't, it was cooked perfectly, just very slightly el-dente the way it should be cooked. He likes his veg cooked to mush though.... He also thinks that 4.2% is strong beer, and insists that back in the day Watney's Red Barrel was THE best beer.... lol I've also brewed some pretty awful beer... lol As to 50p a pint, no idea as I don't price my brews like that. I brew because I enjoy brewing, and to see if I can produce ever more delicious (to me, my family, my friends etc) beer, not to try to make it on the cheap. If commercial beer is so bad though, how come there are so many people trying to clone it? So many books out there been sold full of clone recipes? Some of it, well yeah to use it's awful, but there are people who like it! I know people who LIKE the taste of Fosters (I have a book with a clone recipe in it... lmao)... I myself used to like the taste of Budweiser (I swear they changed it though!), there must be people out there who like Green King IPA, maybe they can't stand hoppy beer?

No, I judge a beer on it's own merits, but will say that sometimes you don't have to spend a lot to find a good beer. These threads will always pop up though, either somebody fancies a troll, or somebody is just of the mindset that paying more than £2 a pint for beer isn't right (which if they'd brewed all grain, makes less sense, as then you know the work etc that goes into producing a good beer, and I'd love to know where outside of Weatherspoons (spit) you can find good beer for under £3 a pint now...). Now, when you get post code variations in price on the same beer, that's a different story.... I still remember paying £2 for a pint of the same beer that was £1.35 at home (1996 and it was Fosters).... THAT is overpriced beer.... lol

 

[strange-steve]

Oh I wouldn't for one moment judge all beers on the basis of a few, whether expensive or inexpensive

That's because you're clearly a reasonable and rational person. To be clear, my comments weren't aimed at you, but rather some of the common opinions that are spouted during these threads.

 

[AlDaviz]

I can only thank brewdog, I like there beers and obviously everyones taste is different (some people like big birds, skinny birds, hairy, shaved, others even like men)
Due to the price of brewdog I tried to have a go at hombrewing. Fairly successfully with a good red ale, Pilsner, Dipa, and my latest NEipa.
Good luck to anyone who has a career they enjoy and can make good money from.
Well done Brewdog

 

[Stephenj]

I don’t want to presume to speak for Steve but I suspect he meant that home brewers are generally interested in both producing and consuming good beer and alongside that should go an appreciation for the dynamics of the industry. As for the world class aspect, to me brewdog isn’t world class beer, it’s pretty decent but middle of the road and is priced accordingly. Cloudwater for example make hoppy beers that are world renowned, and the price by volume is probably in the region of double what you’d pay for brewdog. Basically, I disagree with the fundamental premise of this whole debate that £2 for a 330ml of good beer is expensive.

I don't think 2 quid is expensive to be fair either. As for what taste nice etc. it is subjective and no-one on here, me included, can say that their opinion is right or someone elses is wrong. No one person is trained to any level which overqualifies them on 'opinion' meaning theirs is worth more than any others. Study all you want, train to be a cicrone, but ultimately everything comes down to an opinion. The original poster of this thread, their opinion, unfortunately has led to some, maybe me, saying they are wrong, and THIS is the opinion they should have .

I love this forum for the advice i get from seasoned homebrewers and the restbite it can give from the outside world with witty comments/threads/posts.

 

[phildo79]

I rarely, if ever, come across genuinely faulty beers, although this isn't luck, it's the result of purchasing from trusted suppliers who know their stuff. And, the Manchester, East Cheshire, Derbyshire beer scene is pretty strong, so the quality has to be there for breweries to survive.

I know exactly what you mean. Over the last ten years, the amount of breweries in Ireland has gone from about 15 to 100+. That's an awful lot of new breweries in a short period of time. People were jumping on the bandwagon. People that wanted to make a quick buck. At first this seemed like a good thing. No longer did I have to go to specialist offies for something a bit different. Now the local supermarkets were selling stuff that I'd never tried before. But the excitement was short lived. It didn't take long to realise what was going on.

Most of those breweries probably don't even exist any more. You bought something from a new brewery one week, the next week it had been replaced by something from another brewery. Usually thankfully but then it turned out to be just as poor. That's when I started sticking to stuff from small Irish breweries that I knew made good stuff. But that list was small. Still is. So I don't often venture but then sometimes you just can't help yourself or there are limited options. These are the times now that I feel the biggest disappointment. I find myself buying something like Miller instead of taking a punt on an unknown (and more expensive) beer. For most things in life, when something costs more, it usually means it is of a higher quality, better, nicer etc. But, unfortunately, that isn't always the case with beer ATM.

 

[AdeDunn]

That's because you're clearly a reasonable and rational person. To be clear, my comments weren't aimed at you, but rather some of the common opinions that are spouted during these threads.

If you think that I am reasonable and rational, you don't know me very well.

Don't worry though, I didn't think your comments were overly aimed at me Steve, I was just entering into discussion with you. I do agree that for some people it seems that what they taste is actually effected by how much they pay for it, but in a negative way, as in the more they pay the worst it tastes. Oddly though usually they then state that they wouldn't pay for it in the first place, which raises the question as to how they'd know if it was overpriced or not in the first place... It'd be like me judging an expensive wine as overpriced, I'd never buy one as I only like Vouvrais and Piersporter really (both of which are fairly cheap) as I'm just not a fan of the flavour of wine, which makes me utterly the wrong person to judge a wine on it's flavour or value. I can't stand peaty Scotch whisky either, so to me an expensive highland malt would be a pointless purchase, yet I'd quite happily pay £40 for a bottle of a Speyside single malt that I like, yet my father in law thinks I am bonkers and will happily drink Grouse and Grants (which I can't stand at all! They're fire water!)… To me though, a bottle of Grouse is bad value, as £20 for something I can't stand, vs £35 to £40 for something that I am going to enjoy for months on end.... Which makes your point (and that of a few others here) regarding judgements often been too subjective when it comes to the value of a beer. If you adore a particular, but expensive, beer then it's not at all overpriced. If you hate that beer, then to you then maybe it is.

I just see nothing wrong with expressing a view that you feel that it's overpriced, so long as you do mention that this view is in your own opinion only, and don't then try to stomp on those expressing an opposing opinion.

Heck, there are insane people out there paying ANYTHING AT ALL for bottles of this stuff called gin! It tastes like aftershave!!!! My in laws love it though, and I even helped them out when they couldn't manage to strain their damson gin that they'd made. They "thanked" me by making me taste the horrid stuff... They'd turned it from aftershave into this odd medicinal tasting sweet stuff.... Mind you, in my father in laws case, this is the same guy who'll drink Grants and Grouse whisky....

As to Gunge's homebrew, I can only imagine it tasting like a hybrid between engine oil and phlegm (kinda reminds me of draught Bass that... lol), and that this is why he loves it so much, been Gunge and all....

 

[strange-steve]

If you think that I am reasonable and rational, you don't know me very well

Well relatively speaking that is

 

[MickDundee]

As to Gunge's homebrew, I can only imagine it tasting like a hybrid between engine oil and phlegm (kinda reminds me of draught Bass that... lol), and that this is why he loves it so much, been Gunge and all....

TBF Engine Oil is a decent beer!

 

[AdeDunn]

Well relatively speaking that is

Ahhh, well if you compared me to my relatives.... (For anybody not sure, yes that's a joke... lol).

TBF Engine Oil is a decent beer!

I was thinking more Castrol than Kestrel to be honest.... Although I reckon Gunge wouldn't use Castrol as he'd say it's overpriced.....

 

[Gunge]

Furthermore, my curries are way better than any restaurant... the missus and kid no longer pester to go out for one if I'm around to deliver the goods. My self- built stereo and speakers make stuff costing many thousands sound like a malfunctioning washing machine. I could go on. Same with beer - we have the ingredients and techniques at our disposal, do we not? Seriously, yuse guys aren't trying hard enough. Maybe some of you should call it a day.

Ade... Castrol is overpriced. All you need do is compare the specifications on the can, and forget all this 'liquid engineering' crapola designed to fleece the gullible. I know a guy who paid £60 recently for a can of Mobil summat or other for his crappy Beemer. WTF?!

 

[strange-steve]

As to Gunge's homebrew, I can only imagine it tasting like a hybrid between engine oil and phlegm

Well I'm judging the freestyle competition in July and hope he enters. If it's as good as he says then it'll be a walkover

 

[Sadfield]

I also imagine Gunge would make the best US president, ever. The bestest. Covfefe.

 

[AdeDunn]

Furthermore, my curries are way better than any restaurant... the missus and kid no longer pester to go out for one if I'm around to deliver the goods. My self- built stereo and speakers make stuff costing many thousands sound like a malfunctioning washing machine. I could go on. Same with beer - we have the ingredients and techniques at our disposal, do we not? Seriously, yuse guys aren't trying hard enough. Maybe some of you should call it a day.

Ade... Castrol is overpriced. All you need do is compare the specifications on the can, and forget all this 'liquid engineering' crapola designed to fleece the gullible. I know a guy who paid £60 recently for a can of Mobil summat or other for his crappy Beemer. WTF?!

My dad always said the same thing to be honest Gunge, same with Duckhams. He always went to the spares shop and bought their generic oil of the correct specification. He's never owned a brand new car though either, and back in the day drove old bangers, so spending a lot on motor oil would have been silly.. lol

Oh, and I've brewed some pretty gorgeous beers to be honest, but I'm far too humble you see. I would happily let anybody try my Ponder's Paradise Porter and decide for themselves how good it is, however they need to come get a bottle, I'm not paying for ruddy postage!!!

My desktop PC is genuinely better than anything I could have bought ready built at the time I built it too... lmao

Well I'm judging the freestyle competition in July and hope he enters. If it's as good as he says then it'll be a walkover

He's probably like me, too cheap to pay for the postage.... You seen the price of postage these days? Talk about overpriced!!!